


Looped

by icannotevenhhh



Category: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
Genre: Abe and Emma's Break Up, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Break Up, Developing Relationship, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enoch being soft, Flowers, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Love Letters, Multi, Pre-Canon, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22602301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icannotevenhhh/pseuds/icannotevenhhh
Summary: Alternately titled: Enoch O'Connor's Guide to English Colloquialisms"So how are you going to spend the rest of eternity?"I ponder over it for a bit, falling backwards onto the grass. “...I never really thought about it. I mean, even out of the loop, I assumed I’d be dead by twenty-seven.” I play with the strap of my dungarees, listening to the whispering grass around me. Emma follows my lead, falling onto her back, her strawberry-blonde hair splaying around her head like a golden halo.“Give it some consideration, will you? As much as you’re a pain in the ass, and even though I’d very much like to wring your neck on a daily basis, I care about you. A lot, in fact. I don’t want to say that it’d break my heart (because it’s already broken), but I should think that it would make me very sad if you spent all of forever oogling the innards of the butcher’s latest cut instead of being happy.”
Relationships: Emma Bloom & Enoch O'Connor, Emma Bloom/Abraham Portman (onesided), Enoch O'Connor/Horace Somnusson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 59





	Looped

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary of terms used in ending notes!

Loops are incredibly boring if you don’t know what to make of them. The same faces, same happenings, same winds, the endless resetting and restarting, an oblivion of repetition with an exit toll of crumbling to dust. 

I’ve memorized the daily routine of the butcher by now; he’s the only person on this god-forsaken island with a mildly interesting life. Well, interesting to _me._

Every day at four o’clock sharp, hours before the sun breaks over the island’s rocky cliffside, he stumbles home from a late night of drinking, barely sober enough to put one foot in front of the other without nose-diving into the street. Once home, he falls straight into bed, his large, broad-shouldered figure barely stirring his wife, despite their entire mattress practically sagging to the floor. The pair sleeps until half past nine, jolted awake by Mrs. Griffiths rapping at their front door. Then, begrudgingly, they get up and open shop, the butcher muttering a few unrepeatable words as he unlocks the door to let Mrs. Griffiths, his first customer of the day, inside. 

My favorite part of the day happens at 1400 hours, when the butcher begins to eviscerate the sheep he bought from Mr. Bollin--one of the town’s shephards--the previous day. The disemboweling process is as entertaining as anything, and though I’ve memorized it, it never fails to be entertaining.

Sometimes, if Millard hasn’t accidentally bothered him, and if I put on my best puppy-dog eyes and beg insistently, he lets me get up close and watch. Which, in fact, is what I’m doing now.

“Can I see the heart?” I ask, standing on my toes to take a gander at the action, the bloody hooked knife in the butcher’s hand slicing the sheep from its chest all the way down to its crutch. He shoots me an odd look as its innards flop out onto the counter, sending splatters of leftover blood flying.

“Wouldn’t the old bird in charge of you have a fit? This ain’t the stuff for children, boyo,” he says, setting his knife down with a little _chunk._

I can’t help but laugh to myself at his unintentional accuracy--she’s quite the old bird, alright--and I shake my head. I know just what to say to get him to listen to me, though the words on my tongue are nasty enough to make my gut churn, even after years of endless repetition: “She won’t mind a bit! You know how dames are these days, always beating their gums and keeping us men from having our fun!” That earns me a chuckle (sexist bastard), and I know I’m not far from my prize. I puff out my chest, putting on my best impression of an obnoxiously curious schoolboy. “Now show me the heart, I want to see!”

“Alright, alright, settle down, lad. If you really want a peek, I won’t stop you,” he says with an air of mild amusement, taking a smaller knife and making quick work of removing the carcass’s now-useless blood-pumper. He leans over the counter, heart in hand, levelling it with my eye so that I could examine it. I’ve memorized its shape and colour: pale and fleshy, a bit smaller than a human’s but much larger than the mouse hearts I usually work with. It’s a beautiful specimen too, glistening and fresh. I could practically hear it beating. It’s enough to make even the pickiest of deadrisers prickle with gooseflesh. 

“Wicked,” I breathe, and the butcher laughs. He opens his mouth, about to comment on my reaction, when the bell over the door jingles. I expect it to be Millard, here to scold me for disrupting the shop’s daily routine, but to my surprise, Horace steps inside. 

He’s dressed to the nines, as per usual, looking starkly out of place in a countryside butcher shop. I can tell when the smell hits him (he wrinkles his nose), and he eyes the bags o’ mystery on the wall, his face draining of colour when he notices the sheep guts on the counter and the heart in the butcher’s hand. Aside from blanching, though, he doesn’t falter, the heels of his fancy dress-shoes clacking against the floor as he makes his way over to me. 

“Enoch,” he begins, peering down at me with poise and composure despite looking quite green. I interrupt him before he manages to finish.

“What d’you want? I’m a bit busy at the moment, if you haven’t noticed.”

Horace’s brow creases, and I can tell he’s growing frustrated with me. Hah. “I _have_ noticed, thank you. And it’s important.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

He crosses his arms, shaking his head as though talking to a small child. “It’s two thirty, Enoch. You usually like to look at the _heart-_ ” he pauses, shuddering in disgust, “-at two thirty.”

“Fairs, I guess. What’s happened, then? Did Victor sink the ferry again?” I ignore the butcher’s gradually increasing confusion.

“No, I-”

“Is Olive stuck in a tree?”

Horace huffs. If he were a bird, his feathers would be all ruffled up. The image is amusing enough to make me crack a smile. “Of course not, it’s-”

“Has Bronwyn-”

“Enoch O’Connor, if you don’t quiet yourself and let me speak, I _will_ cut all the buttons off of your clay soldiers’ uniforms and sell them in town.”

I shut up. I don’t want to, but I shut up.

“Miss Peregrine asked me to fetch you,” Horace finally finishes. “It’s about Abe.”

* * *

The walk back to the home was the same as any walk back to the home. If Millard were here, he’d narrate under his breath every notable occurrence around us, no matter how boring anyone else would consider it to be. 

We may not know the day as well as Millard, but Cairnholm in mid-afternoon is no stranger to Horace and me. We sidestep a dog chasing a flock of clucking chickens, and Horace gracefully hops over a wave of dirty water, courtesy of a tired-looking mother of six dumping out her laundry bucket into the street.

“So what’s all this fuss about Abe?” I ask, tucking my hands into my pockets. Horace hums darkly, a strange look crossing over his face. 

“He’s sent a letter back home. Emma’s…” he pauses, trying to find the words to describe his thoughts. “... not too happy about it--she accidentally set the sofa on fire. ”

I scowl. “Why’s she got the morbs about a behaviour report? I thought she loved those.”

“She _does,_ ” Horace replies, swerving around a crying, sticky-handed boy chasing another. The latter is loudly throwing taunts into the air, and we wait until the ruckus has passed to continue our conversation. “But for some reason this particular letter is upsetting her. I don’t know why, though...she hasn’t let anyone see it.”

“Not even the bird?”

“Not even the bird.”

There’s a long stretch of silence. We’re far enough off the road proper that there’s no one to fill it, and the grass is tall enough to tickle at my bare knees. Horace stops for a moment, picking a stray dog rose, twirling it between his fingers. It’s green around the base of its petals, freshly bloomed and speckled with dew.

“These are Fiona’s favorite,” he muses, tucking it into the ribbon of his hat. “...Do you think she and Hugh are going to get married someday?” 

“Probably, they snog enough to fill about twenty-seven honeymoons in an hour. Why?”

Horace slows, stopping in his tracks. His waist is completely hidden by grass now, and I take the opportunity to pick the cockle buttons from my socks and flick them away.

“It’s just...we used to say that about Emma and Abe, too. And now something bad’s happened, and Emma’s shut herself up and is catching fire almost constantly.”

“And?”

Horace huffs in frustration, putting his face in his hands. “...I worry everything’s going to fall apart. That Fiona will leave too, or that something will happen with the bird, or that-”

“Horace, listen.” I step up to him, clapping a hand onto his shoulder. His head snaps up, his eyes shining with tears. It makes my chest twinge, but I ignore it. “Emma and Abe are probably just having a little spat. Everything’s going to be fine.” 

“But it _isn’t!_ ” He cries, pulling himself away from me and falling onto his knees in the grass. He reminds me of a painting Emma likes--something about a girl called Christina. “I keep having these dreams, about Abe. He ages right before my eyes, screaming for me to _get back, get away, you demon_ ; he slashes at me with a battered old letter opener…”

Horace takes a shaky breath, looking back at me; his tears threatening to spill. “...He looks at me, and his mouth opens, and all I can see is blood.”

What he says terrifies me, but I can’t in my right mind tell him that. Horace is scared out of his wits, confirming his fears would only make them worse. So instead of making a snide remark, I bite my tongue and kneel beside him.

“You want to hear what I think?”

Horace sniffles, wiping at his eyes before their gathered shine could tip over his lashes. “Not really, but go ahead.”

“I think that you need to quit worrying. Your head’s so far in the future, you can’t even see what’s right in front of you. Our loop family is stuck this way, yeah? We’ve all got each other’s backs, whether we like it or not. So even if, say, Miss Peregrine is kidnapped by wights and Fiona gets hurt and Victor does a backflip off of the island’s westward cliffs, those remaining will stick together like flies to paper traps. Even if it’s just you, me, and a ball of lint.”

Horace blinks. He looks stunned by my sympathy. “...Promise?”

“Promise, Future-Boy” I say, and offer a hand to help him up.

* * *

“She’s up in her room,” Horace says, letting go of my hand and detangling our interlocked elbows. He’d latched himself onto me for the remainder of the walk home, and I had no real complaints, so I’d let him. “Hopefully she’ll let you in,” he continues, taking the dog rose he’d picked and tucking it behind my ear. I flush. “When someone screams at you, you tend to scream back.” 

“Is that an insult?”

“It’s a compliment.” He smiles gently, his fingers ghosting over mine as he turns to leave. It makes my stomach take an odd turn, but that’s not something to explore right now, instead, I steel myself and head up the stairs to Emma’s room.

It’s the second door to the right along the upper hall, painted plain white like all the others. The brass doorknob is scorched and malformed, notches for fingertips burnt into the metal by red-hot hands. I knock three times, my right hand finding its way to the doorknob.

The notches are too slim to fit my fingers.

“What do you want?” Emma snaps, her voice muffled by the wood of the door. “I told you to leave me alone!” She sounds like she’d been crying.

“No you didn’t, and I will not hesitate to cop you a mouse if you don’t open up! I’ll give you a count of three!” 

“Enoch, go away!”

“One!”

There’s some shuffling within the room. 

“Two!” 

“Quit shouting, you’re causing a scene!”

“Thr-” Before I can get the word out of my mouth, the door flies open, and Emma drags me inside, hands so hot they burn my arms. Her eyes are ringed with angry red splotches, and stray hair from her ponytail is on fire, so I lick my thumb to pinch it out. The room is a mess compared to her usual tidiness, with letters strewn everywhere and the covers of her bed thrown to the floor.

“What the hell do you want?” she hisses, practically shoving my arms away.

“I want to know why you’ve shuttered yourself up. Spill it,” I reply, idly rubbing the handprint now seared into my skin.

“I don’t have to tell you _anything!_ ”

“Like hell you don’t!”

Emma’s composure falters, her lip quivering, and for the second time today I have someone fall to their knees before me. She folds her arms, her actions reminiscent of a child’s tantrum, and takes a deep, shuddery breath. “..It’s about Abe.”

“No shit.”

Emma shoots me a dangerous glare, producing an envelope I hadn’t noticed she’d been holding. She offers it up, hands trembling, for me to read. I take it.

It’s addressed vaguely to Emma, plainly and without endearment, written in a neat, if-a-little-blocky script recognizable as Abe’s. Inside is a picture of a man: he’s holding tight to a little dustbin lid; a girl. Her hand is resting on his shoulder, and her eyes are shut tight, as though she’s sleeping curled into him. It dawns on me that I’m looking at a picture of Portman himself, which means that the little girl he’s holding is his daughter.

Underneath the picture, written in dark, hard-pressed pencil, are three words: 

**THIS IS WHY.**

It’s a Dear John - goodbye forever.

A growling, churning black mass of anger grows in my stomach, and I’m not sure if it’s on my behalf or Emma’s. Abraham Portman, a man who we’ve all loved and shown nothing but support for, up and left us. Up and left _her,_ an endlessly devoted soul made of nothing but passion and loyalty, with a heart twice as big as the country he’s gone and fucked off to.

My fury claws its way up to my mouth, and I look back down at Emma, seething. But the sight of her on the floor, watching my reaction with tears in her eyes, makes it evaporate off of my tongue and disappear. All I feel now is cold. 

Without a word, I crouch down to her eye level. Emma doesn’t look at me. Instead, she looks past me, at something in my hair. “Where’d you get that?” She reaches up, plucking the dog rose from my ear and twirling it between her pointer finger and thumb. 

“I forgot that was there,” I mutter under my breath, watching its petals blur together as it pirouettes in her grasp. For some indeterminate reason, I want her to give it back. (It’s mine, after all.) “Horace gave it to me.” 

“Horace,” Emma muses. She takes Abe’s letter back, turning it upside down and gently shaking it out, the picture fluttering to the ground amongst a flurry of something dark brown and withered. 

“I sent Abe one of Fee’s flowers, once. This is what’s left of it.”

Silence stretches between us, until I finally take in a breath. “You want my lump of ice?”

“Sure, go ahead,” she says, using her finger to push around the petals on the floor. “It’s not going to fix anything.” The look in her eyes shifts, and a lock of hair falls into them as she glances up at me. Her face is swimming with emotions: anger, sadness, loneliness. Despair. I must be going soft, because I settle down next to her and sling my arm over her shoulder, squeezing it gently. 

“I think that you should try and be by yourself for awhile.”

“It’s not like I have a choice.” 

“Well, no, but think of it as an opportunity to be better for it. Abe’s an ass. If he wants to shag some Normal bird in Nowheresville, America, that’s his loss. You’re a fire, Em. You’ve never stopped burning before, so don’t let Abraham Dorkman snuff you out now.” I offer her a lopsided grin as I finish my spiel; speeches seem to be today’s theme.

“...That sounds rehearsed,” Emma says, and for the first time she cracks a smile. “Have you been practicing?”

My mind goes to Horace. Earlier, in the grass. What we’d talked about; pulling him back to his feet and guiding him home. His arm linked with mine, his satin gloves wet from wiping away tears.

“Believe me, you have no idea.”

* * *

Emma watches the waves crash against the cliffside as we sit, barefoot, with our legs hanging off the grassy edge. It’s later now, and the sun is beginning to slug its way towards the hazy, sea-green horizon. I look around us to check the time.

In the distance, just barely loud enough for me to hear, a fisherman’s son nearly tumbles straight off his boat and into the water, earning an earful and a half from his old man. 

It’s twelve-past-four.

“It’s not so bad to be stuck, I think,” Emma says, an odd look on her face as her eyes follow the path of a seabird. It dives into the water, coming back up with a splash and a flopping little fish in its beak.

“What do you mean?”

Em’s gaze shifts down to her hands, where she’s rolling a ball of blue flame like cookie dough. A gentle breeze blows past us, rustling her hair as the smell of salt spray fills my nose. “Well, I’m going to be miserable for a long, long while,” she begins, her voice laced with pale sorrow. “And it hurts. Oh God, it hurts. But I can let it hurt as long as I need, because I’ve literally got all the time in the world to.”

“...What does it feel like? Heartbreak, I mean.”

Emma thinks for a moment, squashing her fireball between her palms and letting its final sparks flicker between her fingers. “It feels-” 

She stops herself, thinking once more about what she’s going to say.

“It feels like a gunshot sounds,” she settles on, letting her flame go out with an air of finality. “Like some wight in soldier’s garb just took a chatterbox and pocked you full of holes. The _ratta-tatta-tat_ of gunfire rings constantly in your ears, and nobody has the tools to pick out all the bullets under your skin. And, eventually, they sink into your arms and stomach and legs, and they become a part of you.”

“And the gunman?” 

She looks up at me, meeting my eye fiercely. “The gunman can go have his normal girl for all I care. It hurts, and that’s all that matters right now. I love him, but he can suck a bag of rotten eggs.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Emma laughs dryly. “So how are you going to spend the rest of eternity? I doubt you’re heartbroken like me. It’s not like you had anyone to leave you in the first place.”

I ponder over it for a bit, falling backwards onto the grass. It scratches at my neck, and once more I’m reminded of earlier, with Horace. The clouds in the sky begin to turn gray with impending rain, and the wind picks up, prickling at my exposed arms and legs with its cold, sharp teeth. “...I never really thought about it. I mean, even out of the loop, I assumed I’d be dead by twenty-seven.” 

“Not even once? Birds above, you’re such a dead battery.” 

It absolutely kills me to hear how she talks like _him,_ the very man who ripped out her heart. (Perhaps not just hers...) 

“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know.” I play with the strap of my dungarees, listening to the whispering grass around me. Emma follows my lead, falling onto her back, her strawberry-blonde hair splaying around her head like a golden halo. 

“Give it some consideration, will you? As much as you’re a pain in the ass, and even though I’d very much like to wring your neck on a daily basis, I care about you. A lot, in fact. I don’t want to say that it’d break my heart (because it’s already broken), but I should think that it would make me very sad if you spent all of forever oogling the innards of the butcher’s latest cut instead of being happy.”

“I _am_ happy!”

“Sure.”

“Seriously, Em! I am!”

Emma rolls onto her side, propping her head up onto her elbow to properly look at me. I keep a straight face; I don’t want her to see what I’m really thinking, how constantly melancholy I am.

“Skipping meals and going to sleep at two in the morning doesn’t make people happy, Enoch. But if you want me to, I’ll drop it. Just let me say one last thing.”

“Bugger off.”

Emma snorts, ignoring my cynicism. “Flowers are common, right? But they’re still beautiful. And fragile, too, and if you don’t take care of them, they die.”

“What the hell are you on about?”

“I’m on about Horace, you dolt! He always looks at you all funny, like you’re a puzzle. I think he…” Emma trails off, studying my face. Her jaw closes with a clack, and whatever she was about to say seems to die in her mouth. “...never mind. Just...thank him for me. For dragging you up to my room. You’ve been a great help, despite being so thick in the head.”

She shoots me a gentle smile, pushing herself to her feet and brushing the grass from her dress. I watch in silence as she turns, making her way back to the house, pale green skirts and thick, wavy hair billowing in the wind.

* * *

I bump into Horace again late in the evening after dinner. Or, well, he sought me out. I had been dozing, listening to the pitter-patter of rain outside, as well as the constant drip-drip-drip of a leak--how it even leaks in the basement, I’ll never know--and the _plishh_ of each drop falling into a bucket I set out to catch it. I fixed it, once, with a piece of old lumber and some rusty nails I’d found, but of course it all went to shit once the house reset. 

Horace had shaken me awake with the sound of his shoes on the creaky basement stairs, and now here we are. Staring awkwardly at each other as he sets a tray of food down onto my workbench, the tableware on top rattling and clinking against each other.

“Miss Peregrine told me to bring you dinner,” he states simply, words laced with a touch of apology. “It’s Emma’s favorite, lamb roast with mint jelly trim. Sorry it’s not the goose you’d asked after, but the Bird thought that Em needed some cheering up.”

Nodding, I glance over the food. It smells _delicious_ \--my stomach growls, eliciting a chuckle from Horace. “We haven’t heard a word from you since you finished speaking with her outside. Have you eaten?” 

“I’m about to.”

“That’s not exactly healthy, Enoch.”

I don’t reply, instead pulling the tray closer and taking a bite of the food. “Healthy isn’t in my vocabulary,” I say, my mouth full. Horace rolls his eyes and makes a face, pulling up a stool to sit beside me. Thirty years ago, I would’ve bitten his ear off for even breathing in my direction, but I’m surprised to realize I’m barely fazed by him anymore. In fact, I think I’d like him to be closer.

“...Thank you. For earlier,” he says gently, his voice lowering to something soft and cottony. There’s a twinge of pink spreading across his cheeks, painting itself over his freckles like one of Victor’s watercolours. How odd. 

I swallow, taking a few swigs of milk and wiping my mouth with my sleeve. “What, for you or for Emma?”

“Both, I suppose.” Absentmindedly, Horace smooths back his hair, and I notice he’s looking anywhere but me--the floor, the ceiling, my quickly diminishing food. “I’m not sure what you said to Em, but it worked wonders. She told us everything. Wynnie was taking care of her, last I checked.”

“Glad to be of assistance.”

There’s been an awful lot of pausing between our words, but for some reason it doesn’t feel weird. It’s comfortable, in fact, as another one stretches between us. 

“It’s awful tragic, don’t you think? Emma and Abe.”

I think about how Abe used to tease me, how I seemed to be the only one he didn’t like. Then I think of Emma. (Why she ever loved him, I’ll never know.)

“I guess.”

“I mean, she was devoted. It’s a bit sour to say such a thing, but...I’d like to have someone cry over me, I think. It’s an awful sort of romantic.”

I’m not sure what to say, so I just keep eating. “Yeah.”

“Would you cry?”

I choke, nearly spitting out my lamb. “Sorry?”

Blue eyes shock me to the core as Horace meets my gaze. “Would you cry over me? If I left?”

I take a second or two to think it over, swallowing. It’s not a question of _if,_ it’s a question of _how much._

Horace...sweet, handsome, posh Horace. Horace the absolute toff. Horace, who’s plagued by nightmares of a future he might never get to see. Proud, careful, if a tad vain. The answer to his question hits me square in the forehead, and I nearly choke a second time as I realize it:

I’m dead nuts on him.

“...Yeah, I’d cry. But don’t tell anyone I said that, they’d say I’m growing soft.” (He has no idea how much he means to me.)

“Maybe you’re already soft.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. Unless you’re just keeping my rose for decoration.” He flashes a cheeky smile, motioning to its place on my workbench, settled between two gruesomely dismembered homunculi. I flush in response, threateningly taking a spoonful of mashed potatoes and aiming it to fling at him. He chortles, holding his hands up and ducking into himself. “Okay, okay! You aren’t soft, I concede!”

“Thought so.”

As Horace and I sit, me eating dinner and him being my company, a warm, strange feeling blooms in my gut.

Loops are incredibly boring if you don’t know what to make of them. The people are the same, the sunsets are the same, and everything else is an endless repeat.

But the people, my housemates, are different. They still love and hurt and want to be loved, with every inch of their beings, hearts, and souls. They laugh and cry and scream and _feel_ , and I can talk with them like I’m a real person, too; not a looped echo of someone long dead. I forget that sometimes. And as Horace giggles at something I’ve said, it’s as though today is different than all the hundreds of identical summer evenings behind us. 

I think I understand why Emma loved Abe.

I think I’ve found someone to break my loop.

**Author's Note:**

> ### Glossary
> 
>  **bag o’ mystery** \- sausage  
>  **beating one’s gums/beating your gums** \- to talk a lot about something  
>  **behaviour report** \- (WWII) a letter home to a girl  
>  **bird** \- a girl  
>  **bugger off** \- buzz off, fuck off, etc.  
>  **chatterbox** \- (WWII) a machine gun  
>  ** _Christina’s World_** \- a painting by Andrew Wyeth  
>  **cockle buttons** \- the sticky seeds of a burdock plant  
>  **cop a mouse** \- to give someone a black eye  
>  **dead battery** \- (WWII) an irritable or gloomy person; a pessimist  
>  **dead nuts on** \- (WWII) fond of; in love with.  
>  **Dear John** \- (WWII) a letter from one’s wife/sweetheart informing one that the relationship is over  
>  **dustbin lid(s)** \- (Cockney rhyming slang) kid(s)  
>  **fairs** \- shorthand for “fair enough” or “that’s fair”  
>  **got the morbs** \- temporary melancholy; to be upset/down in the dumps  
>  **lump of ice** \- (Cockney rhyming slang) advice  
>  **thick** \- stupid  
>  **toff** \- a rude term for a rich or high-class person; a snob
> 
> Thank you to James for proofing this for me! As always, critique and feedback is appreciated! (:


End file.
